Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Mefâʿîlün mefâʿîlün mefâʿîlün mefâʿîlün (identification of the metre is ours)

Sıma mir'ât-ı kalbüm tâ ki kılmayam nazar gayra
Ki sûret bir görinmez tâ ki olsa inkisâr anda

In English

1. Do not break the mirror of my heart, so that I may not look at another; for once there is a break in a mirror, the image no longer appears as one.

Literary and Historical Commentary

The Broken Mirror

The key to the couplet lies in its first word. "Sıma" is the negative imperative of the verb "sımak", which in Old Anatolian Turkish means "to break": "do not break". The poet asks the beloved not to break the mirror of his heart. The reason is given in the second line and rests on an observation: in a broken mirror the image is divided, and instead of a single form many fragments appear. In a whole mirror there is only the beloved's image; if the mirror breaks, the lover's heart is scattered too and his gaze slips towards others. The beloved's cruelty is thus shown as a danger that would undo the lover's faithfulness. This reading depends on taking the word "sıma" as a negative imperative; if the word is read as "break", the couplet becomes the speech of a lover who asks for his heart to be broken so that he may not look at another, but in that case the reason given in the second line is weak.

That the heart is a mirror reflecting the beloved's face is one of the familiar images (mazmun) of divan poetry. Rahîmî joins this image to a physical fact, the way a broken mirror multiplies the image, and draws from it a conceit about fidelity. The word "bir" in "sûret bir görinmez" can be taken as both "single" and "the same": in a broken mirror the image stays neither single nor the same.

Sources

In Kınalızâde Hasan Çelebi's tezkire the couplet is given with the word "velehû" (also his) after Rahîmî's first ghazal fragment. Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar quotes it in Amasya Tarihi in third place and with a small difference: "Sıma mir'ât-ı kalbim tâ ki kılmayam nazar gayra / Ki sûret bir görünmez nâgeh olsa inkisâr anda". Hüsameddin's reading "nâgeh", "suddenly", does not change the meaning; it stresses that the break may come without warning. Whether the couplet is the opening of a ghazal or a single couplet composed on its own is unknown. The life of the teacher who turned to a sheikh is on the page Rahîmî Abdurrahîm Efendi.

Bibliography

Online sources